


Not in Blood

by Trensu



Series: The Adventures of Darcy and Loki, Mischief Makers [7]
Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Drug Use, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-17
Updated: 2011-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:57:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trensu/pseuds/Trensu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was running away from Loki because Loki had caused her pain. Loki just didn’t understand how or why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not in Blood

**Author's Note:**

> So, this deviated from my crack theme. I'm not sure how that happened. Um. But, for sure, next couple installments will make up for it. I promise.
> 
> Warning: There is some past child abuse/drug abuse in this part.

  


Darcy didn’t close the portal after she ran through it. Loki would reprimand her but he knows that, under any other circumstance, Darcy wouldn’t have forgotten to do something so simple and important. She was distressed and hurting; she was fleeing.

She was running away from Loki because Loki had caused her pain. Loki just didn’t understand how or why. So Loki stepped through the portal Darcy left behind, taking care to close it behind him, and found himself stranded in a cool, heavily wooded area. Not a hint of desert anywhere. Loki took a moment to be impressed by the distance Darcy covered in her portal.

“Darcy!” Loki called out, taking a tentative step forward, cloak dragging loudly against the forest floor.

~*~*~

Darcy winced at Loki’s call. She had forgotten to close the portal behind her; such a juvenile mistake. She pulled her invisibility cloak tighter around her. She had hoped that it would make up for her repeated failures in self-transfiguration.

It hadn’t.

~*~*~

_Darcy felt sick. This time of year was tiring. Hours filled with frantic studying. Nights spent worrying rather than sleeping. Exam after exam during the day. The only time she felt at all relaxed was when she was working magic and even that has been tainted with frustration because that damned self-transfiguration spell was not working for her._

_And it was her mother’s birthday soon. She’d have to call her. She’d have to talk to her. Maybe this time, her mother would--but Darcy couldn’t think about that now. It’s better not to think about it, especially when she had a spell to learn. She glanced at her book, flowery text stating “Self-Transfiguration.”_

_The words made her feel nauseous. Loki had been hounding her about that spell. It made her sick thinking about trying again, just to fail. Instead, Darcy placed the finishing touches on her invisibility cloak. Working on the cloak helped her forget about final exams, about failing, about her mother. Darcy loved magic._

~*~*~

“Darcy!” Loki called again, subtly tracing the symbols for a seeker spell into the air. She couldn’t have gone very far since Loki had been very quick to follow her. The shimmering of the spell dissipated, not creating the smoky ribbon that would lead him to the object of his search. Loki frowned, casting the spell again.

She was wearing her cloak, Loki realized. She hadn’t mentioned that she made it impervious to seeker spells. A small voice in his mind pointed out that he hadn’t given her the chance. With a frustrated growl, he waved away the remnants of his seeker spell.

“Darcy!”

“Leave me alone, Loki,” Darcy shouted back. In an instant, Loki teleported to where he heard her voice. He found himself entangled in a patch of brambles with Darcy nowhere to be found. The little mischief maker had thrown her voice.

~*~*~

_Darcy tossed the book at the wall in sheer frustration. She couldn’t even change the color of her hair. She couldn’t make it go from brown to black; such a simple transition and it was beyond her. After a moment, she guiltily picked up the old book and gently smoothed out the pages. ‘It’s not the book’s fault, you’re incompetent,’ a too familiar voice hissed in the back of her mind._

_She startled when Loki appeared. It was Friday afternoon. She was supposed to have learned the spell by now. She didn’t want to let him down. She didn’t want him to think that she had been wasting time. When he enquired about her progress, she presented her invisibility cloak with a flourish._

_“It took me awhile but I figured out how to thread the spell into the cloak. And it should hide me from thermal and motion sensing tech, too, not just hiding me from human sight. How awesome is that?” Darcy proclaimed, grinning broadly._

_(She noticed that Loki had been edgy lately so she took care to put some extra cheer into her words to maybe loosen up her mentor. A smile could inspire another to smile as well, after all. Not that this had ever worked on--)_

_Loki paced in front of her, obviously agitated._

_“That is not what I asked you to do,” Loki stated coldly. Darcy’s brow furrowed, trying to ignore Loki’s tone._

_“Well, yeah, I know,” Darcy began to fidget, feeling dread pooling in her belly. “But I told you I had finals this week. You know I’m having trouble with that spell. It’s not like I haven’t been trying, but it’s hard and I can’t--”_

_Loki whirled around to face her, cape billowing behind him. He loomed over her and Darcy suddenly felt like a child again in her mother’s dingy, smoky apartment._

_“Of what use are you to me if you can’t change your form?” Loki shouted. Darcy took an unconscious step back, pulling at her cloak. To her dismay, she felt her eyes prick. Loki was being Loki, albeit a bit angrier than usual. It shouldn’t hurt._

_But Darcy knew that words were weapons coming from the right mouth._

_And Darcy was just so tired._

~*~*~

“Do they have drug addicts in Asgard?”

Loki followed the voice again, and ended up falling through a rotted log.

“My mother is one, but I don’t know if you’d understand what that means if you’ve never heard of a drug addict before.”

He teleported into a creek, dark water soaking through his cape and boots.

“I don’t even know what she took,” Darcy’s voice was shaking, “but she took a lot of it.”

Instead of following the voice again, Loki made his way back into the clearing. Once there, he muttered a quick drying spell.

“Most of the time it was okay, because she would--she wouldn’t see me. It was like I wasn’t there or she went somewhere else. Somewhere better. That didn’t have me in it.”

Loki settled onto ground, legs crossed and hands gripping his knees. He closed his eyes, slowing his breathing, and concentrated.

~*~*~

_Of what use are you, he had said and it had hurt. It had hurt because it was so close to something painfully familiar. It had hurt because it had come from someone as important as--_

_“I--that wasn’t f-fair,” Darcy stuttered in response to Loki‘s harsh words, throat tight. Her breathing was uneven and before she could think, she was flying through a portal from her apartment to the forest she had once visited when she was very young._

_Because suddenly, she felt very, very young again._

_‘Useless! You’re useless. All you do is get in the way! It’s your fault he left us,’ Mama raged, throwing anything she could get in her hands. If Darcy stood still, her mother might stop. She whimpered when a tissue box caught the corner of her eye._

_‘I should never have kept you. If you hadn’t been here, I’d still have him. I wouldn’t be alone anymore.’ Mama cried. Her mother was crying and it was Darcy’s fault. Darcy didn’t know how to make it better. If she pretended to be a statue, very still and very quiet, maybe Mama would forget she was there and then Mama might smile again._

~*~*~

Loki heard Darcy’s voice coming from all directions. It carried a slight echoing quality that indicated that it was being thrown about. Loki hadn’t noticed before but it was very apparent now. The voice would start from the south and shift to the east then to the west. With every sentence, it would change direction, although it would rarely come from the north.

“But sometimes, whatever she took wouldn’t…agree with her. And she’d see me again. And she’d yell a lot. I don’t…I really don’t like it when people yell at me. I can’t--I just don’t like it. But she’d yell and throw things. She’d tell me I’m useless. That no one stayed with her because I got in the way. That she hated me and wished I was gone.”

Loki the Liesmith was good at telling lies, which means that he is very good at spotting truths. The pain in her voice was as true as the sun in the sky. Her words were fact. It made cold fury grip the heart most claimed he lacked. His student was brilliant. She was superior to any other human on this miserable plane of existence.

To know that someone dared to make her feel small and insignificant…

He would deal with that later. Now, he had to focus his attention to finding Darcy.

“Other times, she wouldn’t recognize me.”

Her voice wasn’t echoing anymore.

~*~*~

_“Hello, Helper Elf,” Mama said dazedly. She was smiling. Darcy’s whole world brightened._

_“Hi. Did you need anything?”_

_“I’m thirsty, Helper Elf.”_

_Darcy leapt to her feet, hurrying to the kitchen. She shoved a chair closer to the counter and climbed up to get a plastic cup. “Water or juice?”_

_“Juice. I like apple juice,” Mama murmured. Darcy pulled the jug of apple juice from the fridge. Very carefully, she poured until the cup was half-full. She didn’t spill a drop. Mama smiled at her when Darcy handed over the cup._

_“You’re my favorite, Helper Elf. Much better than that girl. She’s not here now so I don’t have to share you,” Mama smiled softly again._

_Darcy smiled back because Darcy wasn’t here. No one liked Darcy, but Mama loved Helper Elf. Darcy loved being Helper Elf because Helper Elf was better than Darcy could ever hope to be._

~*~*~

“It took me years to realize that Darcy and Helper Elf were the same person. Years. I spent years thinking I was worthless. But if Helper Elf was useful and liked, then Darcy could be, too.”

Loki straightened, eyes flashing towards the north. The loss of the echo meant that Darcy had forgotten to throw her voice. But it wasn’t clear enough yet, he’d have to wait for another slip.

“You’re not allowed--” Darcy’s voice cracked and Loki shot to his feet. That was Darcy’s true voice. Finally, Loki had a destination. “You’re not allowed to call me useless. Because I’m not. I’m not. I get good grades because I’m smart. I get people bringing me their tech because I’m good at fixing them. I have skills.”

Loki moved silently until he reached the area where Darcy was hiding. Now he had to be patient. Darcy might be wearing the cloak but she was distracted; she’ll give herself away.

~*~*~

“And my magic’s not that great yet, but that doesn’t mean--” Darcy choked, realizing that her face was wet. How long had she been crying? Mama would be furious. _Good kids don’t cry,_ Darcy thought, angrily scrubbing her face with the corner of her cloak. “I’m not useless.”

A hand clutched her shoulder. Startled, she looked up and saw a pair of green eyes. Loki. Loki found her and he’s watching her cry. Darcy felt a wave of shame, hastily turning her stare to the ground. _He’s going to leave. He’s going to take all his wonderful books and magic, and leave me,_ Darcy panicked. Before she could pull away, she felt Loki pull off her hood and kneel down to where she was huddling against a hollowed tree.

“You’re saying that as though you are lying,” Loki murmured, adjusting himself so that he sat side to side with Darcy and pulling her close.

“What?” Darcy hiccupped, drying her eyes.

“I can tell a lie from a truth. The way you say you’re not useless sounds very similar to a lie.”

For a moment, Darcy couldn’t breathe. Loki knew. He saw everything Darcy tried so hard to ignore. _Mothers know best,_ Darcy thought bitterly. She bit the inside of her cheek. She would not cry anymore in front of Loki.

“Darcy, you are the most brilliant human I have ever met. How could you not believe what you tell yourself? How could you not believe such a simple fact?” Loki’s gaze hardened as he turned Darcy’s face upwards to meet his eyes. “You are not useless, Darcy, regardless of what anyone says or what I might have implied earlier.”

Darcy wanted to believe him. “My dad left us because of me. I can’t make my own mother love me, no matter what I do. My parents regret my existence and you want me to believe that I’m worth keeping around?”

“That woman is not your mother. The man that abandoned you is not your father,” Loki hissed. “You may have been born from them but blood means nothing if this is what your kin does to you.”

“And how would you know?” Darcy snapped. “You ran away from your mother just like I did!”

“My mother never hurt me,” Loki snarled. Loki paused, startled. “My mother never hurt me," he repeated in disbelief.

“Then why would you leave her?” Darcy asked bitterly. Loki had no reply. “I have no one, Loki. I don’t have any older brothers or sisters to take care of me, or younger siblings to watch over. I have no mother to worry about my health. I don’t even know what my dad looks like. I have no family.”

Darcy’s face was dry and despondent. She looked so resigned to her loneliness. It was an expression that Loki saw every time he looked at his reflection. He didn’t like it. Loki wanted nothing more that to see his protégé’s toothy grin again.

“I would worry,” Loki muttered hesitantly.

“What?” Darcy eyed him warily.

“I would worry if you were ill or distraught. I am, in fact, very worried right now,” Loki stated. Darcy looked at him blankly.

“Loki…are you trying to replace my mother?” Darcy’s lips twitched. Loki shrugged nonchalantly, feeling emboldened by Darcy’s response.

“I can do it better than any human, I’m sure,” Loki sniffed. Darcy smirked, finally relaxing against Loki's side. Loki wasn't leaving. Loki cared about her just like she cared about him.

“What makes you think that?”

“Because, unlike the mortal you grew up with, I would have been proud to call you my daughter,” Loki said seriously, watching Darcy’s grin slip in surprise.

“…really?” Darcy whispered tremulously. Loki wondered how anyone could have mistreated someone so eager to succeed, so eager to learn and please. She was, Loki realized, very much like him when he was a child.

“I would be honored if you’d accept me as your kin,” Loki replied solemnly. Of course, that formality quickly vanished as he was suddenly embraced. Darcy's face was buried in his shoulder, arms wound tightly around his torso. Her shoulders trembled slightly and Loki chose to ignore the dampness growing on his shoulder in favor of pulling her closer. They sat together, wrapped around each other, for the better part of an hour. Loki rubbed Darcy's back in a soothing manner he remembered experiencing in his mother's arms so long ago. Eventually, Darcy stopped shaking and pulled away far enough so that she could look Loki in the eye. Her face was red and splotchy, but her eyes sparked in good humor and gleeful determination once more.

“I’ll be the best family anyone could ever dream of,” Darcy promised. “Us tricksters have to stick together anyway, right?”

Loki hummed in agreement as Darcy disentangled them and got to her feet. She offered a hand to pull him up. She didn’t let go afterwards.

“Hey, does this mean I have to call you ‘Mother’ now?” Darcy squeezed his hand, leading him back to the clearing. She was ready to go home now.

Loki grimaced. “As I am still your teacher, you should be calling me Master Loki.”

“Nah, that’s boring. How about Mama Loki? It has a nice ring to it, I think,” Darcy grinned cheekily.

“Darcy…” Loki warned. Darcy stuck her tongue out at him and let go of his hand.

“Bet I can make it back home faster than you,” Darcy yelled and ran off.

“Do not distract from the topic at hand, Darcy,” Loki shouted, but by the time he made it to the clearing, Darcy had already summoned her portal and stepped through. She had the audacity to wave at him as she closed it off.

“Brat,” Loki muttered, lacking any anger, and slowly put together a portal of his own. He’ll have to remember to compliment Darcy on her skills. She had, after all, been able to evade him for quite a long time even under emotional distress. Not many were able to hide from him.

Loki would have to find some way to reward her for that accomplishment. And possibly, a small part of him whispered, find some way to thank her for giving him a family again.


End file.
